Love on the Air (2 page)

To everyone who's still out there trying: It happened to me. It
can happen to you too.

He wasn't the man she'd expected.

Dark hair. Searching brown eyes. A well-tailored
black suit.

The coat of that suit was parted to accommodate a
large, middle-aged midriff. The dark hair left off well
above his forehead, exposing several inches of balding
scalp. And his smile somehow reminded her of a frog
that, when kissed, might turn into a toad.

Of course, Christie Becker wasn't sure what she'd
expected from the general manager at KYOR, the radio
station where she was interviewing for a job. She'd
been too excited when she got the call yesterday. This
afternoon, she'd pulled into the building's parking
structure literally breathless. She'd forced herself to
wait in her car for a few minutes while she tried to slow
the pounding of her heart.

She had plenty of time. After all, she was twenty
minutes early.

Now, those quizzical brown eyes scoured over her
resume, as if some trace of radio experience might
appear there. She had none, except for the fact that
she'd finished broadcasting school three months ago.
Her pulse raced and she caught herself smoothing
down the hem of her dress. Again.

"Well, Miss Becker," Mr. Arboghast said, "I did
have the impression you had a little more experience
when Alex gave me your tape." Alex Peretti had been
her teacher at broadcasting school. He was her staunch
supporter, and best of all, a good friend of Ed Arboghast, the station's general manager.

"No, sir," Christie said, sitting up straight and putting out her best smile and radio voice. "Just the radio
station at broadcasting school." Her smile widened.
"But if you drive in a two-block circle around the
building, you can pick up the signal pretty well."

It had the right effect. It made him smile. "Yes,
well, maybe I'll try that some time." The smile raised
the round cheeks in his full face, making his eyes almost disappear. "The point is, I listened to the tape
Alex gave me. I like it." He folded his hands in the
center of his nearly-empty desk blotter. Christie
couldn't help thinking this man would have been out
of step even when Dick Clark was rating records on
American Bandstand back in the fifties. Still, he
seemed to like her, and that was a good sign.

Mr. Arboghast looked at her for a moment, cocking
his head to one side. Then he said, "I'm going to have
you talk to our program director."

Christie felt as if she'd just been dropped into one
of those dunking booths at the county fair. Her nerves, which had been lulled into a low idle, revved up again.
Talk to the program director. That had to be good.
But then why had she started off talking to the general
manager, the station's official head honcho?

The "honcho" was picking up the phone, and Christie could almost hear the sound of gears being set in
motion. Oh, please, let it be true. She'd been a liberal
arts major for her first two years of college. Finally,
the question people kept asking her had begun to penetrate: What are you going to do with a liberal arts
degree? She'd always loved music, but she didn't
show any special talent for performing or writing it,
and the idea of teaching didn't appeal to her. A spate
of business courses followed as Christie rushed to prepare herself for a career in the mythic "real world."
All for what? Three mind-numbing years in a loan
office.

In college, the world had been full of possibilities.
She'd put her shy, mousy teenage years behind her.
But as the possibilities vanished, Christie felt as if she
would disappear too. She was dissolving into the background of a staid, third-floor office as her twenties
ticked away.

Her dream of working in radio had kindled almost
out of nowhere, but once it took hold, it caught fire.
All her life, people had told her what a pretty voice
she had. At last she'd decided to put that voice to some
use. Something enjoyable. Something better than
pushing papers eight hours a day. So she'd gone to
broadcasting school in Hollywood-and, finally,
found something she excelled at.

"Rick?" Mr. Arboghast was saying into the phone. "I have someone here for you to see. An applicant for
the overnight shift."

A pause. Mr. Arboghast looked at his wristwatch.
"That's not for another fifteen minutes. Could you
squeeze her in?"

Christie's heart sank. This man hadn't even known
she was coming?

"Okay, right now. See you." He hung up and rose,
scooping up the neat little folder with her resume inside. The ink blotter on his desktop was now bare.

"Let's go." He smiled at her, and she prayed she
wasn't being led to the slaughter.

Following Mr. Arboghast down the corridor,
Christie surreptitiously checked her appearance. She
couldn't see her slip, but just to be sure, she tugged
up under the waistline of the rose-patterned dress she
was wearing. With its matching solid rose blazer,
she'd hoped to look feminine and businesslike at the
same time. When she tried it on, it had seemed like
the right complement to her fair complexion and dark
red hair.

More makeup? Less makeup? There was no time to
check, as she was led through a very confusing series
of corridors. The station was on the ground floor of
an office building in Santa Moreno, a nice little town
tucked away in a corner of Southern California an
hour away from Los Angeles. How big could the
building be, anyway?

At least she knew there was no food in her teeth.
She'd checked in the rearview mirror before she got
out of the car.

Mr. Arboghast stopped outside an office door, the width of his body blocking her view into the room.
Christie heard the voice coming from inside and froze.

"I've got to go, Jack," said a rich male voice. "I'm
on the air in a few minutes, and something unexpected
just came up." A pause. Then he laughed, a warm,
deep baritone laugh that Christie felt deep down in her
toes.

She knew that voice. The program director-her
prospective boss-was Rick Fox. She remembered
him well from the radio station she'd listened to back
in college. She'd spent many a night studying in her
dorm room with Rick Fox in the background. She'd
admired those rich tones even then, years before she
consciously thought of going into radio. Christie swallowed, resolving not to be starstruck.

"Gotta go," he said. "Talk to you next week." Mr.
Arboghast stepped through the door. Christie stepped
in beside him. Behind the desk was a man with light
brown hair, his face turned away from them. He sat
in front of a computer screen on the right-hand side
of the L-shaped desk. One hand rested on the computer keyboard; the other still held the phone. Christie
had the immediate impression of a man used to doing
several things at once. Unlike the general manager's,
his desk was heaped with stacks of papers, manila file
folders and trade magazines.

Rick Fox hung up. "Hi, Ed. What have you got for
me here?"

Christie wasn't sure how she felt about being referred to as a "what."

Then he swiveled around in his chair, and she drew
in her breath. He was younger than she expected early thirties at most-and, not to put too fine a point
on it, drop-dead handsome. He had thoughtful-looking
gray eyes, and features that wouldn't have been out of
place on a classic film actor from the forties. Christie
remembered him joking on the air about having a face
made for radio. He'd lied. His basic white dress shirt
was open at the neck, his light brown hair slightly
tousled. Careless, but not sloppy. Someone who didn't
fuss too much over his appearance, which Christie
found all the more attractive.

She reminded herself it was the job she was after,
not the man behind the desk.

The classic features took on a startled look as his
eyes fell on her. Then he stood, long legs unfolding
underneath him with a smooth, masculine grace.
Christie slapped herself mentally. She wasn't some
teenager with a crush; she was a grown woman, interviewing for a job she desperately wanted.

"Rick," Mr. Arboghast said, oblivious to her idiocy,
"this is Christie Becker. Alex Peretti sent me her tape
last week, and we've just been talking." He handed
the folder to Rick. Christie sensed, with a sinking feeling, that he'd never seen it before in his life. And he
looked like he had a lot on his mind.

He took the package from Ed with his left hand
while he reached for hers with his right. When they
shook hands, Christie felt the blood go to her feet. The
pressure of his fingers around hers was warm, firm and
brief, but the gray eyes contemplated her for a long
time. She would have given a lot to know what they
saw. "Miss Becker."

"Mr. Fox." Her much-praised voice deserted her; to
her own ears, she sounded about thirteen years old.

He took his seat, her folder still in hand, and motioned for her to sit in the small, straight-backed metal
chair facing his desk. A lot less elaborate than Mr.
Arboghast's office, Christie noted, sitting down on the
hard seat. She also noted that somewhere in the last
several seconds, Mr. Arboghast had disappeared.

Mr. Fox opened the little folder, wearing a preoccupied expression. She ventured, "Did I catch you at
a bad time?"

He glanced up with a trace of a wry smile. "I'm
afraid there's never a very good time."

This didn't bode well. "I know you're on the air in
a few minutes. I could come back-"

"You're here now. It's as good a time as any."

As he leaned back and studied the contents of the
folder, Christie took the opportunity to study him. He
would have looked even more appealing if not for the
faint frown lines appearing between his brows. Christie reminded herself once more to concentrate on the
business at hand. Was he seeing anything he liked?

There wasn't much to see: her resume, a photo, and
the little cassette that all her hopes were pinned on.
After what seemed like three hours, but could only
have been a few moments, Rick glanced up at her.
"Nice eight-by-ten glossy," he said with another halfsmile. It didn't sound much like a compliment.

"That was my instructor's idea," she said, hoping
Alex was a friend of Rick's as well as Mr. Arboghast's. She'd wondered at the time if the picture was
a good idea. After all, this wasn't a modeling job. He looked down again, and the half-smile was gone. "He
thought the hair color would help me stand out," she
went on. Unnerved by his silence, she added, "That
really is my natural hair color."

She was prattling. Worse, she sounded like an
empty-headed girl.

"Too bad," Rick Fox said dryly, his eyes still on
the folder. "I was thinking of getting mine colored the
same way."

She wanted to crawl into a hole and die.

Until he looked up and grinned at her.

The grin was as devastating as the wisecrack had
been, for an entirely different reason. His face lost its
guarded look, and all Christie could do was smile back
even as she felt her face flush. Maybe things would
get better from here.

They didn't. Returning to her resume, he got to the
subject she couldn't escape. "I see you're working
now as a loan processor."

"That's right." Only two syllables, but at least it
wasn't stupid. And she didn't squeak.

"I'm a little puzzled, Miss Becker. You've got three
years of solid experience at that job. You're making a
lot more there than you would starting out as a disc
jockey here. Why would you want to leave?"

"Ever work in a loan office?"

"No." The smile was back. It brought out pleasant
crinkles around his eyes. "Pretty exciting?"

"Death defying. If you want to die of boredom."
She pulled in a breath, remembering to bring her voice
up from her diaphragm the way she'd been taught.
"That's just it. I've spent three years in an office mak ing decent money, but it's nothing I really care about.
That's why I went to broadcasting night school. I want
something I can put my heart into." No need to go
into the rest. How one day she'd looked down at the
cheap veneer of her desk and almost sworn she could
see herself fading into it.

"Well, Miss Becker, radio isn't all it's cracked up
to be either. It's not nearly as glamorous as you might
think. Disc jockeys eat a lot of Top Ramen, especially
when they're first starting out. And I'm afraid advancement isn't exactly guaranteed either. Vacant air
shifts don't come up very often here, except for the
overnight shift. Did Ed tell you what the job pays?"

"No, we didn't get to that."

He told her. She tried not to wince. She said, "I've
got some money put away."

"And you realize the shift is from midnight to 6
A.M." He studied her again, faint frown lines creasing
his brow once more.

"Yes, I'm fine with that." Would he please ask
about her qualifications? Christie needed to get on
comfortable ground. Speak up. Elaborate, she told herself. She opened her mouth-to say what, she didn't
know. Things had gone so well with the general manager, she'd been caught off guard. One more minute
and you're out the door. You don't know when you'll
get another shot. You've got to make this one count.
"Have you heard my tape?" There. That was something.